


Stands the Lonely Tree

by alicekittridge



Series: Visions of the Past, Glimpses of Life [5]
Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Feelings, POV Third Person, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-07-04 12:06:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15840972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicekittridge/pseuds/alicekittridge
Summary: Villanelle has a new handler intent on bringing up the past.





	1. Reflections

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, hello, been a while since I've written in the Eve/Villanelle department; The Fall is a beast that I'm determined to finish, but this came about too, and so I couldn't resist sharing. Please forgive the shit summary, I promise this is going to be exciting and emotional. 
> 
> Title is from a sonnet called "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. 
> 
> Thank you to Dani/viagiordano for her immense excitement about this one as well, and for her love for Nikita.

_If I should die, think only this of me;_

_That there’s some corner of a foreign field_

_That is for ever in England_

—Rupert Brooke, “The Soldier”

* * *

 

 

“Good evening, Villanelle.”

            It isn’t a man. It’s a woman. Straightened light brown hair, sky blue eyes, fair skin, a harder set to her mouth, which is painted a glorious shade of red. Villanelle guesses she’s in her early forties. Her outfit is expensive and chic, a women’s suit in the classic colors of black and white. Villanelle’s eyebrows fly upwards. “Have they sent me a shrink?”

            “I’m your handler. Anton’s replacement.”

            “Well,” Villanelle says, giving the woman another once-over, “you’re certainly… less flamboyant.”

            “You shot him in the head.”

            “It was the only way to shut him up. I’d hate to shoot you too. You’re much prettier to look at.”

            She only blinks at the words. Then she introduces herself. “I’m Nikita.”

            “Oh, your parents must’ve seen the movie before naming you. Suits you, seeing the way you dress. Do you have something for me?”

            Nikita reaches into the back pocket of her trousers and produces a postcard. “I believe you’re familiar with Edinburgh.”

            “One short trip isn’t enough to become familiar with something, but yes.” Villanelle steps forward, takes the postcard from Nikita’s fingers, the tips of which are painted in almost the same color as her lips. Red must be her favorite color.

            “He’s a judge. Needs to be taken care of quickly. You’ll find the information in the files sent to your new computer.”

            Villanelle reads over the brief note on the postcard. The handwriting is old-fashioned-looking cursive, quite feminine too. Underneath it is a departure date. Tomorrow, 11:25 AM. Villanelle tucks the postcard into her jacket pocket. “How do you feel about dinner, Nikita?”

            Nikita says nothing, only gathers her things and follows Villanelle out the door.

 

            “God,” Villanelle groans, snatching Nikita’s plate away from her, “you have to eat more than rabbit food if you’re aiming to be so full you can’t walk.”

            “Salads are very filling,” says Nikita.

            “Bullshit.” Villanelle slides the plate of medium rare beef to Nikita’s side of the table.  “Eat the beef.”

            “Aren’t I the one who’s supposed to be giving advice?”

            Villanelle gestures to her, says, “If you want to. Something profound.”

            “Lusting after someone who tried to kill you isn’t necessarily a sane thing to do.”

            “Wooow. So profound.” She shoves more beef into her mouth, licks the grease from her fingertips as noisily as possible. Still, Nikita only blinks. “I’m still angry with her, by the way. Don’t think I’m not.” Villanelle cleans the vegetables from her plate and lets her silverware clatter against the expensive china.

            “Why her?” Nikita questions. “What is so different about Eve than say, Anna?”

            Villanelle takes the dessert menu from the middle of the table. They’re still the same, apart from one change. She’s in the mood for pirozhki. “Are you sure you’re not a shrink?” she says.

            “I told you, I’m your handler.”

            “Neither Konstantin nor Anton, _bless his heart_ , asked me about Anna. That was always the shrink.” Villanelle flags down their waitress. “Could I get an order of pirozhki, please?”

            “Certainly,” the waitress says.

            “Thank you so much.” The waitress blushes, and then she turns, makes her way back to the kitchen. “She’s into girls,” Villanelle says. “Should I ask for her number?”

            “You haven’t answered my question,” says Nikita.

            “Nor have you answered mine. Not honestly, anyway.” Villanelle downs the rest of her champagne, pours herself another glass. “I don’t like liars.”

            “I was a psychologist for fifteen years,” Nikita says after a pause. “Then I was—”

            “Recruited.”

            “Yes. They thought it would be useful, particularly from the point of view of a handler.”

            “Surely they’re not paying you to try to get inside my head,” Villanelle says.

            “It’s a bonus, not a priority.”

            “Then if it isn’t a priority you should stop trying. It’ll make both our lives easier.” The waitress comes back with Villanelle’s pirozhki. She goes to a different table to deliver their check but her eyes keep landing on Villanelle. Villanelle takes a bite of a pastry as suggestively as possible and makes the young woman blush until her face looks like an almost-ripe tomato.

            “They’re worried about Eve Polastri,” Nikita says.

            Villanelle stops chewing for only half a second. “Oh yes? Why?”

            “They think she’ll be a problem for you.”

            “She already is. The bastard tried to kill me and left a fucking brutal scar.” Villanelle’s free hand drifts there, feels it over her sweater. It’s been two months but the damn thing is still tender, especially if she presses on it hard.

            “It can be taken care of.”

            “You won’t kill her,” Villanelle says, voice hard. “She’s needed in this.”

            “By whom?” Nikita questions. “You or us?”

            Villanelle shoves the last of her piece of pirozhki into her mouth and dumps the rest of them onto the beef plate. “Either you stop playing the shrink and psychoanalyzing me,” she says, “or I shoot you in this restaurant.” Her compact is tucked into the waistband of her pants, a warm but light weight. She can reach it in the time it takes Nikita to blink and shoot her between the eyes before she has time to think a last thought.

            “All right,” Nikita says easily, holding up a hand. “No deep questions.”

            Villanelle nods once. She flags down the waitress, asks for her half of the check. She pulls out a few bills, more than enough to cover it. When it comes back the second time, there’s a number on her copy of the receipt. She hastily signs both, pockets her copy, stands up and gathers her bag. “You can cover your half,” she tells Nikita, and leaves her new handler sitting alone at the square table by the window with a half-drunk bottle of champagne.

 

            Villanelle stays at the apartment she’d met Nikita in for the night. It reeks of her perfume, something like an ocean, the kind of thing a bank teller might wear. But it’s a warm scent, and it stirs her insides pleasantly. Nikita may be slightly hard to deal with, but there’s no denying that she’s attractive. Hot, even. Her hair had been straightened, and so, as Villanelle sinks into a hot bubble bath, she wonders what Nikita’s natural hair looks like, indulges herself in that for a minute, before she thinks back to Eve. She hadn’t lied to Nikita, Eve is a problem who is needed, and by both Villanelle and the Twelve. Neither knows why. Despite Eve having a hand in Villanelle’s almost-death, she’s still fascinated by the beautiful Asian woman, still wants her. Maybe, Villanelle thinks, turning the tap on and adding more lavender bath soap, that was why Nikita had asked about Eve in the first place, because Eve was certainly different than Anna, because Nikita had been worried that, once Edinburgh was done, Villanelle would take a side-trip to England to see her. Which shouldn’t be surprising to her in the least. But that’s not what’s going to happen. She’ll go to Edinburgh, get the job done, and go back to Paris. Russia is boring.


	2. Deep Focus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a fair bit of sexual content in this chapter. I have no idea what happened.

“This better not become a regular thing, Nikita.”

            Villanelle has just stepped off the plane and into Edinburgh Airport. The large windows reveal overcast skies and a drizzle of rain. She’ll have to purchase an umbrella.

            _“I was told to check up on you,”_ Nikita says. _“Make sure you landed where you were supposed to.”_

“Do you have kids?”

            _“No.”_

“Surprising, given how like a mother you sound. Tell me, if I came back to you after landing somewhere else, would you spank me?”

            Nikita doesn’t answer. There’s chatter on her end of the line; she must be out somewhere. _“Enjoy your trip, Villanelle. I’ll be in touch.”_ She clicks off. Villanelle hadn’t been able to detect an emotional change in Nikita’s voice. Is this what it’s like when other people speak to me? she wonders, wandering down the hallway until she finds a shop with umbrellas. She buys a black one, then makes her way to the baggage claim and the place to rent a car. The file in her computer, along with the report on the judge she’s supposed to take care of within the next two days, had told her to spend her money on whatever she wished, and so she feels no guilt in renting the airport’s most expensive luxury sports car. It purrs when she starts the engine, roars softly when she steps on the gas. She goes twenty over the speed limit on the way to her hotel.

 

            Before getting to work, Villanelle visits the bar on the ground floor of the hotel, slightly hidden away from the entrance. She pulls up a picture of the target on her phone in case it will come in handy. She plants herself at a stool near the darker corner and orders a small glass of the hotel’s most expensive champagne. It’s dry but has a distinct aftertaste. She asks the bartender what the brand is, using an American accent.

            “King Brut,” he replies, “from 1988.”

            Villanelle nods, takes another sip. “I think I’ll have the bottle.” The poor man blanches when she pays in cash but fetches the bottle and hands it over. Depending on how long Villanelle stays in Edinburgh, the bottle may be gone or given to someone.

            “Now I’m wondering where you get your money,” says a man to Villanelle’s left. He’s rather handsome: dark hair and features except for his eyes, which are olive green.

            “I’m a well-paid accountant,” Villanelle says.

            “I don’t think that’s how that works.”

            “Clearly you don’t know there are people who are in the business privately.” Villanelle refills her glass.

            “I suppose not.” He turns to face her. His bowtie is plum-colored. “I’m Loren.”

            “Amanda.”

            They shake hands. His grip is firm and his hand is warm and dry. “You’re in Edinburgh for business?”

            “Sadly. But I was promised a bit of free time if it went well.”

            “What a dream,” Loren sighs, running fingers through his dark hair, which has a wave to it. “So you’re, what, a private accountant?”

            “I must be, considering I don’t work for a firm. My clients pay me according to the amount of work I do crunching their numbers.” Villanelle drinks more champagne and this time she tastes a hint of citrus. “It’s almost like art.”

            “I’d say the two are vastly different,” Loren says.

            “Why, because you’re an artist?”

            “Freelance photographer.”

            “Does that not require calculations? Careful study of details? Editing?”

            “You’re fucking relentless.” He’s chuckling, though Villanelle doesn’t know what exactly was funny.

            “Do you have a room?” She’s growing bored. Loren has nothing of interest, but she may as well pass half an hour somehow. Have sex with him, do some work, find someone else.

            He looks at her in surprise but his eyes are darker. “Yeah,” he says, after a moment.

            After paying their tabs they take the elevator to floor 3, Villanelle holding onto her bottle of King Brut. She sticks it in Loren’s fridge before she traps him against the bedroom wall. She kisses him slowly, and though he’s a lovely kisser, it brings very little feeling. Villanelle unties his bowtie, undoes his belt, and then pulls away, causing him to grunt softly in both desire and displeasure.

            “Take off your clothes,” she says. He obeys. His body is lean and muscled, a result of gym time and other exercises. “Get on the bed.” He’s compliant, already growing hard at her orders. Men are so easy. She searches his wallet and finds two condoms underneath the left fold. “These better not be flavored.”

            “I hate those,” Loren says.

            She smirks. “Me too.” She tosses one to him. Then she binds his wrists to the headboard after he’s put it on, using his bowtie. He seems eager, obviously into this sort of thing. She rids herself of her shoes, pants, and underwear, not giving him enough time to study her before she sits astride him. Villanelle kisses him and slides him carefully inside her. He moans, tilts his head back against the pillow.

            While she fucks him she thinks of Nikita, her icy eyes and her cold exterior and it works, for a moment, but then her thoughts stray to Eve and she momentarily loses rhythm.

            “Oh, don’t stop,” Loren gasps. “Please don’t.”

            Villanelle gives him a gentle kiss. “You asked so nicely. Thank you.” She picks up the pace, much to his surprise. The headboard collides with the wall and his moans grow louder. Villanelle doubts Nikita would be so vocal. She’d probably take it, grunt quietly, and orgasm with a soft sigh, like it was an inconvenience rather than a pleasure. But Eve. Oh, it’s a mystery, something unpredictable, but Villanelle hopes that she curses when she’s close and shouts when she goes over.

            Loren gasps, stiffens underneath her, and Villanelle finds herself following him. He’ll think he’s the cause of her quiet orgasm when it was really imaginings of Eve. She thrusts her hips until the waves subside, and then she slides off him, leaving him a gasping mess while she cleans off and dresses in the bathroom. She unties his wrists and lays the bowtie across his bare chest. “Thank you, for letting me use your fridge,” Villanelle says, and gives him a short kiss goodbye before fetching her champagne and carrying it back to her room on the fifth floor.

            Mildly sated, she sets to work. While she waits for the files to load on her computer, Villanelle stands by the two French doors, watching the rain as it sweeps over the city. A moment later, a beep, and she sits back down to go over the information, drinking the champagne straight from the bottle.

            The judge is an older man named Sean MacMillan, and from the outside he’s just the regular old, conservative plum going against the grain of progress, but on the inside there are dealings under the table, the kind that don’t sit well with Villanelle’s employers, though the reason, as always, if left out, and Villanelle doesn’t necessarily give a damn about the reason. All this is is a bit of fun for a good sum of money.

            Someone had been kind enough to provide Judge MacMillan’s schedule. He’s going on a business trip to Glasgow tomorrow and staying at one of its fancier hotels, where he’ll presumably be alone. The rest of his day is filled with meetings. Villanelle scans the blueprints of the hotel, planning her exits, studying others. It’ll be where the murder takes place. She commits to memory Judge MacMillan’s schedule and then she readies her favorite lightweight handheld for tomorrow, attaching a silencer to the end of it before putting it back in its case.

            Despite the rain, Villanelle goes out, exploring the city, wearing a comfortable navy blue parka. She wanders for about two hours, floating from tourist groups that don’t seem to mind the weather, and then just walking by herself, admiring the old architecture that tells of a history of different periods. After her wanderings, Villanelle has a late dinner at an expensive restaurant specializing in seafood. For the first time in her life, she tries swordfish. Its texture is meaty mixed with a bit of fat, and its flavor is mildly sweet. She ends up eating a decent portion of the thing, finishing her glass of white wine too. She gets gelato for dessert at a shop close to her hotel, and by the time she gets back, it’s past eleven at night.

            Villanelle showers the day off and crawls into the luxurious bed, checking her phone for calls or texts from Nikita. Nothing. She plugs it in and leaves it on the nightstand and thinks of her earlier, mildly sated desire. She hadn’t been thinking about anything specific regarding Eve, just the woman herself and everything Villanelle found fascinating about her, but now she thinks of specifics, and her hand slips down the front of her silk pajama pants, unsurprised to find herself already slick. She thinks of the days she’d admired Eve from afar. Those were the days she’d had her hair down and it was a fabulous, voluminous waterfall about her slender shoulders, unruly, unraveled, like Eve herself had eventually been. Villanelle thinks of the day she was wounded and how close Eve had been and she imagines kissing her, taking her in her old bed, wondering if Eve would be comfortable enough to put her mouth on her. She’d do it tentatively, if she did, clumsy because of inexperience. Villanelle moans at the images, hips arching into her hand. “Eve,” she says. “Use your tongue.” She presses her palm against herself, rubs how she thinks Eve would, gasps, shuts her eyes. “Like that, Eve, just like that…” Maybe she’d help Eve and Eve would have to lick between her fingers, a strange thing but undeniably erotic. The Eve in her mind is growing more confident, her strokes surer, and Villanelle is close. “Don’t stop, baby, you’re fine…” It comes out of nowhere, and for long moments afterwards, Villanelle only lies collapsed against the too-fluffy pillows.

 

—

A car ride to Glasgow only takes an hour, but because of the heavy rain, it’ll take a little longer. Judge MacMillan may make reckless decisions when in court, but he isn’t a reckless driver. In fact, he’s just the opposite, going five under the speed limit—which is, technically, what one is supposed to do in the rain anyway—and it forces Villanelle to slow as well, so that he doesn’t realize she’s tailing him. Her national anthem playlist ends, then begins again with France’s. She lets her head rest against the Audi’s headrest and simply allows herself to cruise, remembering there had been a moment, long ago, where she’d been in a similar position and Anna’s hand had found hers on the CD compartment of her shitty but charming car. She puts her hand in her lap, and the ghost is gone.

            Glasgow’s architecture is a mix of modern and gothic, and it lies along the River Clyde. Villanelle can see the buildings sparkling along its surface as she makes her way into town. The rain has subsided but the clouds still hover, and after Villanelle has gotten out of her car in the hotel’s parking lot, she zips up her parka. The chilly air is a refreshing change. She’d always felt most content on days when the clouds and rain came; the world was softer, grey-blue. Had she been the sort of person, she would’ve holed herself up indoors with tea or coffee and read a novel.

            Judge MacMillan has booked a room at this hotel, just for the night, and will retire there after a meeting, which ends at six o’clock in the evening. Five hours from now, Villanelle thinks, blowing through her lips. She goes around to the trunk to make sure the bag containing her gun is still there and, satisfied that it is, she shuts the door, locks the car, and decides to hit the nearby shops.

            She spends two hours shopping only for herself, picking out expensive and warm clothes for the coming autumn and winter and buying perfumes that suit both seasons. Then, when she’s found all she’s wanted, she spends only an hour looking for things for Eve, coming up with a form-fitting dress that’s a deep red with black accents acting as an outline of its shape. She finds black pumps to match it and purchases the outfit. She pops into a touristy shop and buys Eve a T-shirt with the slogan _Someone went to Scotland and didn’t buy me anything but this shirt._ It’s a sky blue and the text is black on a very light grey print of Glasgow’s buildings and the River Clyde. Villanelle smiles at the image of Eve taking this out of the box, the exasperated look that would surely be on it. She’d probably wear the damn thing anyway, because cotton shirts are always comfy.

            She has dinner at an expensive seafood restaurant, in the mood for salmon and white wine, and afterwards she roams the downtown area until she’s sure that Judge MacMillan is back at the hotel, and walks back to her car.

            Villanelle uses her mobile phone to call the hotel and ask for Judge MacMillan, presenting herself as Katharine McAfee from a local newspaper and wondering if Judge Sean MacMillan would be available for a brief interview. The receptionist—whose voice Villanelle finds oddly pleasant—says she can forward the call to his room.

            “That would be lovely,” Villanelle says, “thank you.” Her accent needs work but it’s passable.

            The phone rings once, twice, three times and then a gruff, _“Sean MacMillan.”_

            “Hi, Mr. MacMillan, this is Katharine McAfee, I’m from _Evening Citizen_ —”

            _“Oh, you’re a journalist,”_ says Jude MacMillan. _“What do you want?”_

“Just a short interview, sir; I’m doing a piece about your works.”

            _“How long’s the article?”_

Ugh. “Only two columns, Mr. MacMillan.”

            Silence. Then, _“All right. Come up to 247.”_

“Thank you, sir,” Villanelle says, and clicks off. So easy to trust women, these men. She tucks her phone into her pocket and fetches her gun from the trunk. It’s a Heckler & Koch USP compact, made in Germany, and shoots .45 caliber rounds. It fits nicely in her hand, and though it’s a little heavier than she prefers, it’s still a lovely weapon. She tucks it into her waistband after attaching a silencer, making sure her parka covers it. She makes her way inside, striding in with the confidence of a guest, going straight to the elevators. She steals a notepad and pen from the maid cleaning a nearby room, holding both in her hand when she knocks on 247.

            MacMillan answers wearing the hotel’s standard-issue bathrobe instead of the charcoal grey suit Villanelle had seen him in earlier. He’s even more unpleasant up close, and it takes all her effort not to wipe the faux mask of nervousness off her face.

            “You’re certainly much prettier in person,” he says, and invites her in. “Let’s get this over with. Something to drink?”

            “Please,” says Villanelle. “Thank you so much.”

            He turns to the kitchenette, his back to her, and Villanelle follows, keeping close while she pockets notepad and pen and draws her gun silently. She aims at the back of his neck and fires. He falls to his knees and keels over, almost like he’s only passed out. She lets out a breath, stares to make sure she’s actually killed him, and then steps over his still-warm body and looks through the fridge. Inside are bottles of expensive champagne, most likely saved for hours from now, when co-workers would stop by to celebrate a meeting gone well. She nicks a small one and pops it open, settling on the couch to drink it. She stays there for a while, ruminating, feeling content but not satisfied. Nikita had said quickly, and this was quick, though she would’ve liked to be a little more creative so she could see his life shrinking in his old, glassy eyes, travel to that state of pleasure that’s a step above sex.

            Villanelle drinks the entire bottle and pens nonsense words on her notepad. When she leaves, the maid is a few rooms down; she puts out the _do not disturb_ sign and, when the maid looks at her, she pretends to have had too much to drink and says, “He’s… a _very_ funny man. Talks so much!” She flashes her notepad and the maid smiles in understanding. She or someone else won’t disturb the room until the sign has been up for an inconsiderate amount of time.

            Villanelle sobers up by walking around the city again, and when her head feels like it’s clear enough, she goes back to her Audi, disassembles her USP, and drives back to Edinburgh. While she packs, she thinks, briefly, of dreary London and little Eve and paying both a visit, but she’d promised herself she’d only do this job, and as fun as it would be to drag Nikita through the mud too, it won’t be worth it.

 

—

“It was well done,” Nikita says, when Villanelle steps through the door to her new Paris apartment.

            “You people never knock,” Villanelle says. She drags her suitcase behind her, filled with souvenirs. “Where is my money?”

            “On the bed.”

            She strips out of her clothes that reek of airplane and hangs the new ones from her suitcase except for the ones she’d purchased for Eve. Those would be carefully wrapped and addressed.

            “Frankly,” says Nikita from the other room, “I had expected a side-trip to London. Why did you not go?”

            Villanelle groans. “How much do I have to pay you to shut up?” she asks. And why do you always ask me these deep things? Perhaps she’s been paid to. Or maybe she hasn’t been paid to and is simply trying to decipher Villanelle on her own, but for what? Personal gain? Someone else’s gain? She walks to the bathroom in nothing but underwear and starts a bath.

            “What do you want from Eve?” Nikita asks.

            Villanelle’s hand tightens on the tap. She wants Eve’s presence, her mind, her body. Wants to take and be taken and have enough energy to watch something afterwards, if that was something they both desired. She strides into the living room, where Nikita hasn’t moved. “I want her to penetrate me,” she says, “properly. Not with a knife.” She gestures to the scar, and Nikita only glances. “It was rude. I was going to give her the best kiss of her life and she stabs me.”

            “You desire her surrender?”

            Villanelle scoffs. “You haven’t met Eve Polastri, have you?” She doesn’t surrender, only reaches ultimatums, holds her head high even if she wants it to sag. The surrender had come from Anna, who had fought herself before kissing her, who couldn’t ever say no. “You’re keeping me from my rituals. Unless you’d like to join me?” Nikita blinks. It’s the only sort of reaction she seems capable of. “You’re no fun,” Villanelle scolds her, and shoos her away.

            Alone and in quiet at last, Villanelle indulges in her bath, leaving the door wide open so that the light from the hallway windows illuminates the space. The tiles on the backsplash still fascinate her. She traces their shape while thinking of doing the same to Eve. She sinks further into the water. Her thoughts stray away from Eve and to Nikita, which is a less confusing subject. Villanelle wants a reaction from her, something other than coolness and unimpressed blinking. Nothing works, neither insults nor sexual invitations. She’s a wall of ice, but Villanelle has dealt with those before. All she had to do was find the right chisel and hammer and chip away at a found crack. But one other thing she knows for certain is she’s attracted to Nikita, in an odd sort of way. She’s cold, almost unwelcoming, but it makes the chase all the more thrilling.

            She turns the faucet on to a harder pressure and opens her legs to it, thinking first of Nikita and fucking her until she melts, and then of the truth she’d told her about Eve, until she must muffle her moans in the crook of her elbow. Inside her head, she’s gazing up at Eve as the orgasm overtakes her, and Eve is looking at her in a mix of awe and desire.


	3. Extravagance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. College is kicking my ass.  
> This was a fun chapter, and I hope you enjoy it too!

A week and no new assignment later, Villanelle returns from an outing at the beach to Nikita standing outside her apartment. She’s wearing another expensive suit and there’s a silver Rolex on her left wrist.

            “You’d better have a job for me,” Villanelle says. “My patience is on its last thread.”

            “We’ll see,” says Nikita, and Villanelle rolls her eyes. Something a mother would say to a child when they’re asking for an ice cream.

            “Come in, then, if you’re so intent on bugging me. Don’t expect me to play grateful hostess.”

            Villanelle takes her time showering off the salt water and sand and touching up her shaving; she puts her hair in a towel while she dresses and applies makeup, then lets it down, brushes it out, and allows it to air dry. She selects darker brown shoes to go with her pink slacks, grabs her purse, and then she’s ready. She tells Nikita, who is gazing out the large window in the sitting room, “I’m going out. Are you my nanny or am I going alone?”

            Nikita looks like she wants a cigarette. “I’ll go with you,” she says.

            “Oh, don’t sound so reluctant,” Villanelle says, pulling her mouth into a drama pout. “We’ll shop for you too.”

 

            Villanelle holds a plum-colored blouse up to Nikita, who is as still as a reluctant mannequin, her arms crossed over her chest. Had her eyes been brown, the color would go better. Villanelle clicks her tongue in disapproval. “You’re definitely not a plum.” She puts the blouse back and selects a lighter shade of blue instead, from the same brand, and holds that one up too. Nikita’s eyes look striking. “This one,” Villanelle says, and adds it to the pile. “Now to find you a coat.”

            “Is this necessary?” Nikita asks at last.

            “Dear God, woman,” Villanelle says, imitating an American tourist she’d heard on the beach, “of course it is.” She leads a stiff-looking Nikita to the back of the store, where the fall and winter collection has just rolled out. There are sweaters and pants and underclothes and many styles and colors of coats. Having found a light blue shirt, Villanelle goes for the darker coats. Black is always a good choice, but something has to upset that balance. She chooses a charcoal grey peacoat and the contrast is lovely.

            “I was never a fan of greys,” Nikita says.

            “Why not?” Villanelle questions, holding the coat up. “You’ll look striking in this.”

            “Grey is often a boring color.”

            “You haven’t looked at the modern world’s trends, have you?” Villanelle slings the coat over the inside of her elbow. “Grey is all the rage. Especially in the housing market. Now,” she says, “I want you to go try these on.” She proffers the coat and shirt to Nikita, who takes them slowly and strides to the dressing rooms.

            As tempting as it is, Villanelle doesn’t select anything for Eve, even though a lovely sapphire coat in a petite size stands out amongst the other colors. Blue is an Eve color. Villanelle runs her fingers over the dyed wool, remembering that it had also been Anna’s. It wasn’t a color she’d worn often—she had an affinity for darker reds and lighter blues—but when she did…

            Nikita exits the dressing room, wearing the blouse and the coat and it’s as Villanelle had predicted, she looks good. It’s a nice change from her usual black and white outfits. Villanelle finds herself smirking. She tells Nikita, “I was right. What do you think?”

            “They’re all right,” replies Nikita. “Are we done playing dress-up, Villanelle?”

            “Yes. Go change. I’ll buy those for you, if you like.”

            Nikita says nothing, turning back to the dressing rooms. She comes out a minute later, gives Villanelle the clothes, and steps outside the department store, pulling a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. Villanelle pays for the clothes and when she comes out, Nikita is putting another cigarette between her lips.

            “That’ll kill you one day,” Villanelle says but pulls Nikita’s lighter from her jacket pocket and lights the thing for her.

            “The price of stress relief,” Nikita says. She blows the smoke to the side. “You don’t smoke?”

            “I have healthier ways of relieving my stress.” Villanelle tucks the lighter back into Nikita’s jacket pocket, letting her finger stay hooked on the edge for a moment. “Do you want lunch?”

            There’s a quiet restaurant around the corner that Villanelle takes her lovers to, when they’re willing to tag along. The place has two floors. The first floor is the entrance and a bar; the second floor is down a flight of stairs, where the actual interior of the restaurant is. Down there, the furniture is darker and intimate, the lighting bright enough to contrast the décor. It isn’t a too-expensive place, but it is on the higher end of things. Villanelle pulls Nikita’s chair out for her and the woman gives her a stern look.

            “What?” Villanelle murmurs. “You’d prefer it if chivalry were dead?” She snorts when Nikita says nothing. “You are a very strange woman, Nikita.”

            Halfway through a mostly-silent lunch, Nikita leans across the table and asks, in a low voice, “Are you trying to seduce me?”

            “Does it look like I want to have sex with you?” Villanelle asks around a bite of chicken.

            “You used to buy the people you were interested in gifts. Or has that changed?”

            Villanelle chews the chicken slowly, swallows, follows the bite with champagne. She says, “We can do what you want, Nikita. I’ll fuck you, or the other way around, or,” she lowers her voice, “we could just masturbate in the same bed, if that’s what you prefer.”

            Once again, Nikita only blinks. It sets Villanelle’s teeth on edge but makes arousal grow in her gut and between her legs. She’s been chasing this woman for weeks—a short distance compared to Eve Polastri—and Nikita shows nothing. Villanelle wants her to at least admit she wants her to kiss her, but there is no such thing that comes from Nikita’s mouth. Instead she says, “You can cover your half,” and, after paying her own, leaves Villanelle at the table by herself.

            Later, when Villanelle returns to her apartment, Nikita is there, and for a moment her heart soars, thinking she’s finally won, but Nikita says, “We need to talk.” Her voice bears hints of unpleasantness. Villanelle sits on her comfortable sofa in the sitting room after pouring herself another drink. Nikita sits across from her, looking very much like the shrink.

            “Is there a problem, Nikita?” Villanelle questions.

            Nikita takes out her phone, opens an app, presses something. Villanelle hears rustling sheets and white noise, and then her own voice and labored breathing. _“Eve. Use your tongue.” “Like that, Eve, just like that…” “Don’t stop, baby, you’re fine…”_ The recording stops just before Villanelle can hear her own orgasm.

            “That’s very rude,” she says after a moment. “Did you use it for your own fun?”

            “This recording,” says Nikita, “was sent to me by a higher-up. And so I must ask, Villanelle.” She leans forward in the chair. “Are you compromised?”

            Villanelle laughs. “Come on,” she says. “Is it illegal to masturbate about someone I’m attracted to?” There is no humor in Nikita’s gaze. Villanelle sits back against the couch, serious again. “No, I’m not compromised.”

            “This says otherwise.”

            “The fucking hell it does.” Villanelle grinds her teeth. “It’s a crush. I want to fuck her incoherent and once that’s happened, nothing will be there.”

            “What do you mean, nothing?” Nikita asks, and it’s the last straw. Villanelle pulls her compact from between the couch cushions and cocks it, aims it right at Nikita.

            “I told you to stop psychoanalyzing me,” she says. “Who are you doing this for?”

            “Myself.”

            “Bullshit.” Villanelle stands. “Get out of my apartment before I shoot you between your pretty eyes.”

            Nikita obeys, cool and without protest. She knows better. It’s a point in Villanelle’s book, but this woman’s walk on ice is getting thinner.

            It was, to be honest, quite a surprising move as it was a rude one. Villanelle has to scoff, impressed. Her employers are assholes sometimes. After the initial shock wears off, Villanelle scours the apartment for bugs, using an old trick Konstantin had taught her: two phones, an ongoing call between them; they’ll utter a shrill scream when they come close to a transmitter. She searches every possible place and comes up with nothing. Perhaps they’ve viewed this place as something ultimately private and off-limits, except to her handler, while hotel rooms are free reign, a private place that is also a public place. Satisfied that there are no bugs, Villanelle grabs her laptop from her bedroom and, once it’s powered on and unlocked, goes into the secure network where she normally finds the files for her targets. She’s used this page before to search through the files of her handlers—she’d done it first with Konstantin, then with Anton, after she’d shot him—and now she’ll find Nikita. She simply types in the name and over a dozen results show. Apparently there are a handful of Nikitas in employment. Their names are known but, upon clicking the first result, their files are securely encrypted.

            She blows a strand of hair away from her eyes. Konstantin’s encryption had taken ages to decipher; Villanelle had pored over all she knew about him, sitting for weeks, until she eventually figured out the passcode had been one of his favorite things. Anton’s had been slightly easier: a place he’d visited often but was under the radar. It’s a mystery as to which Nikita is the right one, and normally Villanelle would have to force the patience but at the moment she doesn’t have to. It’s there out of sheer determination.

            Four hours into her task and no results. Wanting to try something else, Villanelle exits the files and simply pulls up Google and types _Nikita_ into the search box. Many names and surnames appear, the lot of them attached to newspapers and obituaries, photographs of women who are well over forty and some who are as young as Villanelle. She clicks through the pages of results, eyes glazing over, until Nikita’s picture appears in the description of one result on page 32. Villanelle clicks on the link and it’s a digital newspaper article written in Swiss German. The title: _Local Woman Gives Long-Abandoned Mountain Home New Life_. The name in the opening paragraph isn’t Nikita.

            _Marina Mikhailov._

Nikita has an identical twin.

            Their faces are the same, their eyes the same bright blue, even the hair color, but unlike Nikita, who regularly straightens her hair, Marina’s is curly. It’s no wonder Villanelle had mistaken her for Nikita. She’s beautiful too.

            She smiles at the screen. If compliments and sexual invitations won’t work, maybe this will.


	4. Means of Corruption

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait; writing is hard these days.  
> Special thanks to Dani/viagiordano for her help with this chapter, especially with the last scene between V and Nikita.  
> There's quite a bit of sex in this chapter. Don't ask me how it happened. This chapter is also why the rating has been upped.  
> \--  
> There are some references in here to events in The Fall, which I have yet to write about. Don't worry, this piece can still stand by itself, even after I've written said events.  
> \--  
> EDIT: After some re-reading, I've decided to put the sex scene between horizontal lines because of its intensity; so if that's not your thing, you can skip right over it. There is a summary of it at the end of this chapter. Also tagged as dubious consent (thank you J for bringing that up) because of this scene

Three days later, Nikita meets Villanelle at an expensive restaurant whose view is of the Parisian rooftops and, sparkling in the distance, the Eiffel Tower. Villanelle is halfway through her tender salmon dish when Nikita slides smoothly into the chair across from her.

            “I thought you’d stood me up,” Villanelle says.

            “What’s this about, Villanelle?” Nikita questions.

            Villanelle sets her fork aside, licks juice from her fingertips. “I’m taking a vacation,” she says. “A week at most. You’ll have to assign someone else your homework while I’m gone.”

            Nikita takes a slice of bread from the plate at the center of the table and butters it like she’s painting something delicate. “You can do as you like, within—”

            “Within limits.” Villanelle waves a hand. “I’m aware, thank you.” Silly little birds, always singing the same song. Nikita bites her bread, tongue emerging to catch a stray crumb. Villanelle lingers on the action. “Do you want something other than bread?”

            “This is fine,” Nikita replies coolly, shoving the rest into her mouth, getting up once she’s chased the bite with a sip of water. “Enjoy your vacation, Villanelle.”

            Villanelle scrapes the rest of her salmon up but the flavor has gone. She wishes Nikita would say something to her advances. It’s as irksome as it is arousing. By the time dessert rolls around, Villanelle has stopped thinking of Nikita completely and instead wonders, if things had gone a little differently between her and Eve, if they would be sitting here together right now and if Eve would be complaining about the extravagance of the place and Villanelle’s intent to pay for every single damn thing she ordered, no matter how expensive it was.

 

—

The train moves through Interlaken’s lush countryside. Usually very green in the summer, the colors are changing from autumn to winter, and the weather is cool enough to be a little chilly. Up here, Villanelle can see the sparkling emerald waters of Lake Thun and Lake Brienz and the bluer water of the Aare River, the timber buildings scattered throughout the valley, and the newer clusters of architecture. Beside her is Helen, a woman she’d met at the hotel’s swimming pool and convinced to come to bed with her and explore. She’s from Germany—Bayern, to be exact—and makes this trip every three months for business. Her hair is bright red and unruly, with little streaks of grey at the temples and her part. She’s also married.

            “So,” Helen says, in German, “you’ve never been here before.”

            “Not once,” replies Villanelle.

            “What do you think so far?”

            “I’m in love.” That part, at least, is a little true. Villanelle likes the quiet and the green and how fresh the air is. The colder weather is refreshing; she’s glad to be wearing her favorite parka. “The view is incredible from here.” The train is travelling to Jungfraujoch Station, which is at the top of the mountain, a startling 3,454 meters. Once there, she’ll feel like she’s on top of the world.

            “This train is where I like to do my thinking,” says Helen, weaving her hand into the crook of Villanelle’s elbow. The gesture surprises her in its tenderness, reminds her of eight long years ago and the back of a public bus. She lets the touch go on, reminds herself that she doesn’t have to be afraid of that ghost anymore, because Helen isn’t Anna.

            “Oh yes? What about?”

            “Anything. But work stuff is common.” Helen’s thumb rubs her arm. “You never told me what you do.”

            Villanelle hums, looks out the window at the landscape and the buildings getting smaller and smaller. “It’s not important,” she says. “Look how small the buildings are now, do you see that?” They are giants from children’s stories walking a land not meant for them.

            Fifteen minutes later, the train pulls into Jungfraujoch Station and Villanelle and Helen exit with the other tourists, the ones who bear bulky cameras with pointy lens hoods and hold onto their chattering children’s hands. The air is cold up here; Villanelle zips her parka all the way to her chin. They find an opening with a view of the valley, and it’s incredible. Villanelle snaps pictures on her phone, having no one to send them to. A funny feeling emerges in her chest. She’d send pictures to Konstantin, mostly to tell him she wasn’t being naughty—yet—and that she was enjoying the sights. But Konstantin is dead. No longer around to show Villanelle’s pictures to his annoying daughter Irina. She thinks she could send them to Eve, caption them with silly things: _View from the hotel, but I’d rather be looking at you._

            “Is there a home up here that made it into the papers?” Villanelle asks.

            “Yes,” Helen says. “It’s back down the mountain and north. Quite a walk to get to, it’s so secluded.”

            “The person who bought it must be rich.”

            “She is, but she’s very generous. Not the kind of rich that turns you into a sour apple.”

            Villanelle hums. Marina Mikhailov already seems to be very different from Nikita. Villanelle tucks her phone away and offers Helen her arm. “Show me around up here,” she says, and Helen smiles.

 

            The headboard squeaks and hits the wall with each thrust of her hips. Helen’s wrists are part of its decoration, bound there by Villanelle’s belt, her hands gripping the leather with white-knuckle intensity. Villanelle slows the rhythm and Helen opens her eyes, looking desperate, strung-out, teetering on the edge of climax.

            “You’re holding back,” Villanelle murmurs, dragging the pad of her thumb over Helen’s quivering lip. “I want to hear you. I leave you right here if I don’t.”

            “No,” Helen breathes, in English. Her accent is lovely. “Please, go on, I’m right there…”

            Villanelle bites through the ice that gathers at the words, picking up the rhythm until it’s bruising, rewarding Helen for making her pleasure vocal. Helen and Eve blend together behind her closed eyes and while Helen may like to be taken like this, with toys, Eve may not. But the image is pleasing and arousing and Villanelle groans, a smaller, longer orgasm consuming her not long after Helen’s.

            While Helen recovers in bed, Villanelle wraps herself in the hotel’s bathrobe and drinks a glass of white wine on the small deck. Clouds are building up over the mountains and the sun is starting to set, projecting its golden light across the valley. Lights from buildings sparkle in the distance. One of them belongs to Marina Mikhailov’s home. Villanelle wants to be there by dark.

            Helen comes out a minute later, still undressed. “I’m going to freshen up,” she says. Her face and chest are still pleasantly flushed.

            “Can you walk?” Villanelle asks.

            Helen laughs. “Yes, I’m fine.”

            “Helen,” Villanelle says, and the woman turns back, “I’ll be out for a little while tonight. Order room service, if you’d like.”

            Helen nods. “Work thing?”

            “These bastards like to be last-minute.” She runs her eyes over Helen’s naked figure as she retreats to the bathroom. It stirs her insides pleasantly but there’s also disappointment that it isn’t Eve’s. Villanelle grinds her teeth and gulps down the last of her wine. Back inside, she changes into jeans and a warm burgundy sweater, pulls on her boots, and zips her parka. She fetches her lockpicks from the little tool kit in her suitcase, and then she’s off.

            Villanelle inputs the address to Marina Mikhailov’s home in her Maps app and drives her rented Audi R8. The sun is well behind the horizon by the time she pulls up a block away. The light is dark blue and the landscape’s distinct features are now blended into silhouettes. Up here, there aren’t very many lights on the pathway, and so Villanelle has to squint until her eyes adjust. The path inclines halfway up. Dead leaves crunch underneath her boots. A soft breeze whistles in the surrounding trees. Villanelle thinks she could buy a house up here, use it as a vacation home when the time called for it.

            The house is large and old-looking but obviously recently renovated. The architecture is a blend of old and new, the stones recalling times of old, the windows telling of more modern things. The outside lights are on but there is no car in the driveway. It could either be in the garage or gone completely. Villanelle goes around the back of the house, climbs over the small wrought-iron fence and into a large back yard. Half of it is garden, from what Villanelle can tell in the limited light, and the other half is grass. In one corner is an in-ground hot tub, covered but running. There’s a gravel path leading up to the back door but Villanelle avoids it, instead tramping through the grass. She takes her lockpicks and slowly works on the lock, listening carefully for any activity on the other side of the door. The lock clicks. Hearing nothing, Villanelle pulls the handle, opens the door, and she’s in.

            Inside, the house is open and luxurious. The back door is right off the kitchen, whose floors are black and white marble. The cabinets are wood, stained dark, and the countertops are black granite. Off the kitchen is a spacious sitting-room, and here the floors turn to wood. Villanelle bypasses the other rooms, going straight for the grand staircase at the front of the house. She arrives at the top of the stairs and immediately hears water running. There’s a long hallway to her left and at the end of it is a right turn, where a small strip of light shines. Villanelle walks the length of it, glancing at the array of pictures that decorate the walls. Mostly family portraits of people Villanelle neither knows nor cares about. She pauses when she sees one of Marina and Nikita as children. It’s a red-tinted film picture of the two of them on a lake somewhere. One has a bright smile and the other has a serious face, and their hair is curly. They may be close to the same person but there is no doubt about which one is Nikita. Villanelle chuckles. “You haven’t changed,” she says. The one next to it is a more recent picture, where Nikita’s hair isn’t straightened. The curls are anything but unruly; they settle neatly on Nikita’s shoulders. Villanelle feels a pang of some sort of satisfaction. So that’s what she really looks like, she thinks, and makes her way to the lit room.

            It’s the master bedroom. A large room, there’s a king bed in one corner, its covers grey and its sheets white, along with elegant old furniture and a wall-mounted flat-screen; on the other side, there’s a sitting area with a fireplace and crowded bookshelves. Upon closer inspection, the lot of them are Penguin Classics, in English.

            Villanelle turns 180, to the bathroom. The door is cracked and through it she glimpses more black and white marble tile, a large soaker tub, and steamed mirrors. There’s a foggy outline of Marina Mikhailov’s elbow and part of her back and head. Villanelle can hear her humming something even over the sound of splashing water. So stupid, she thinks, showering with the door wide open. It would be easy to enter the bathroom, grab her, and strangle her to death in her own shower, where her feet would slip against the wet tile in desperate attempt to get a grip. She would struggle, make noise, gasp, and in her final moments would twitch, and then finally go still. Villanelle’s hands itch and she steps carefully into the doorway, ready to give Nikita something to react to.

            But something stops her. Every muscle screams while her brain stalls. She watches Marina Mikhailov’s foggy reflection, her head bent under the showerhead, humming a song Villanelle now knows to be by Jefferson Airplane. _Every day I try so hard to know your mind…_

            It’s so easy, she tells herself, right hand curling into a fist. Just open the door, surprise her, gain the upper hand. Choke her.

            _And I know, and I know…_

She can’t. It’s so easy, and she can’t.

            Villanelle walks as silently as possible back through the house, being sure the back door is locked. She retraces her steps and collapses heavily into the Audi’s seat. She breathes through the anger, not directed at anyone but herself.

            She drives back to the hotel. Helen isn’t at her room, but there’s a room service cart outside of it with empty plates. Villanelle swipes her key and hastily undresses when the door is closed, throwing herself onto the sheets that still smell, faintly, of sex, without a single fuck to give.

 

—

Villanelle stays in Interlaken for two more days. Helen says goodbye, another woman takes her place, a Vivian from Brighton who is taking a break from business in Geneva.

            “My husband thinks I’m at a meeting,” she’d said last night, between labored breaths. “I hung up our Skype call.”

            Villanelle was teasing her with her mouth, Vivian’s hips twitching pleasantly against her with each delicate stroke of tongue. “How rude of you.”

            “How rude of _you_ to do this, Natalie…” She trailed off, buried her hands in Villanelle’s hair. “Do you always go for married women?”

            “They’re the most interesting ones,” Villanelle replied, “and are often in need of something.”

            This morning Vivian is kissing down her body, her mouth gentle, her tongue warm. Her wedding ring, a simple silver band, glints in the sunlight. Villanelle leans against her pillows, enjoying the gentleness. She groans softly when Vivian’s mouth finds her, and spreads her knees to allow for more access. “Stay right there,” she says, reaching down to cradle the back of Vivian’s head, and grinds against her mouth.

            Later she watches Vivian pull on her clothes, items she designed herself. The pants are simple and black but the blouse is silk, a deep red color with a floral pattern. Vivian is at the door when Villanelle tells her, “I’ll see you tonight.”

            Her mind no longer occupied with pleasure, it wanders to Marina Mikhailov and Nikita. There’s a bitterness there, an anger directed at herself. She is Villanelle, the Twelve’s best, quick and efficient and ruthless, and yet she couldn’t do this one, even though it’d been handed to her. She had no problem killing high-ranking and corrupt people, had no problem killing innocent witnesses either—Kasia Malkowska, so long ago now, was proof of that. Marina Mikhailov had been neither of those things, just the sister of one psychologist giving Villanelle hell. Had she frozen because of how vulnerable Marina was? How innocent she really was, humming Jefferson Airplane, probably showering off after being in her stupid garden all day?

            The fact that Nikita hadn’t mentioned a sister and had kept her well-hidden in the mountains was blatant evidence that she cared about someone. Probably hid her there to keep her out of harm’s way, should something happen to Nikita while on the job. Villanelle had a sense that their employers knew about Marina Mikhailov but wouldn’t raise a hand against her simply because Nikita had asked them not to. Probably told them Marina wouldn’t be worth killing anyway. But, Villanelle thinks, getting up from the bed at last to fetch a bottle of white wine from the fridge, she can use this against Nikita. Her precious, hidden-away identical twin sister is her only crack.

 

            “Touch yourself.”

            Vivian stares for a moment, asks, “Sorry?” Eve’s green scarf, now tied around her neck, makes her eyes look like a forest. It’s the only article of clothing she’s wearing.

            “You heard me.”

            Vivian obeys, inhaling sharply at the first touch of her own fingers. Her chest is flushed a lovely shade of pink. She breathes, “Wouldn’t you rather to this part?”

            “In a while.” Villanelle watches, oddly entranced, and if she lets her eyes glass over it’s Eve doing this for her, _to_ her. Villanelle inhales a shaky breath, murmurs, “You do it so beautifully, Eve.” After a moment she takes Vivian’s hand and replaces it with her own. She builds her up like that, watching this woman twitch and moan and, finally, arch on the sheets. She doesn’t let Vivian rest, pouncing immediately, getting her mouth on her.

            “Wait wait wait,” Vivian says, pushing feebly at Villanelle’s shoulders.

            “You can give me another, Eve,” Villanelle murmurs, and the protests die in Vivian’s throat and turn into pleasured sounds.

            “Is um… Is Eve someone you’re getting over?” Vivian asks later. She’s fixing her clothes by the doors leading to the balcony, a glass of wine abandoned on the table nearby. Her hair is half-tamed; a shower is probably her best hope at fixing it now.

            “Something like that,” replies Villanelle from the bed. The scarf sits by her hip.

            “I see.” Vivian turns, starts gathering her belongings, putting her shoes back on. She’s at the door when she says, “Good luck with her.”

            “Goodnight, Vivian,” Villanelle says, and the door shuts softly.

            Villanelle picks up the scarf first, running fingers over the material, then bringing it to her nose. Underneath the new scent of Vivian there’s still Eve’s. Relieved, Villanelle places the scarf on her nightstand and fetches her phone. She books a first-class flight back to Paris that leaves tomorrow at 11:25 AM. Interlaken, Switzerland, can’t give her anything else.

 

—

“You’re half a pleasant sight for me to come home to after dessert,” Villanelle says, tugging her shirt down a little further, to better hide the knife she’d stuffed into her waistband. Nikita is in her kitchen, helping herself to a small glass of champagne from a reddish bottle. Having drunk some of it herself, Villanelle knows it’s the sweeter one of her selections. “Something wrong? Besides you drinking my champagne without asking.”

            “I’m merely here to check up on you,” says Nikita coolly. “Ask how your vacation was.”

            “How motherly of you.” Villanelle shuts the front door and strides to the kitchen, snatching her bottle and its cork off the counter. She takes a large sip before replacing the cork and putting the bottle back in the fridge. “You want to stay and visit for a while?” She gestures to the sitting room, and together they take their seats on opposite couches.

            Nikita is wearing an expensive blouse and slacks, sans suit jacket this time. There is no watch on her wrist either. Must’ve felt like dressing down a little today.

            “Was your vacation restful, Villanelle?” Nikita asks eventually.

            “Very.”

            “Where were you?”

            “Switzerland.”

            No change about Nikita’s face. “Since it was restful, you can—”

            Villanelle interjects, “Your sister was beautiful.”

            Nikita doesn’t move, stays as still as a fancy statue, but there is something that twitches in her eyes, there for a moment and gone, but visible. Her voice is soft when she asks, “You’ve seen Marina?”

            “She was very ordinary. Rich suburban ordinary. Pictures in a long hallway, a big bookshelf of yellowing Penguin Classics.” Villanelle smiles. “You know she showered with the door open?” And this is the moment Villanelle has been waiting for. Nikita’s posture is still its prim usual but the hand on her knee has tightened and her eyes are narrowed. Her jaw moves subtly as her teeth grind against each other. “It was easy,” Villanelle continues, voice softer. “Not very smart of her.” She leans back against the couch. “Are you not compromised?”

            There it is, that loss of composure, mask breaking away and then suddenly Nikita is in front of her. She hits Villanelle, hard, across the face, causing her head to turn to the side. Her cheek stings and she presses her fingertips to it.

            “What did you do to my sister?” Nikita asks. Her voice is breaking too.

            Villanelle stands, hits Nikita right back, and grabs her by the upper arms, her grip vicelike. “For all I know,” she says, “she’s still in the shower.”

            Nikita breaks one arm out of Villanelle’s grip and delivers a blow to her face; it hits her in the mouth instead of the nose. She tastes blood, feels a split in her lip. She growls, truly excited and angry now, and lunges, grabbing Nikita by the collar of her blouse with one hand, using her free one to wrap her fingers around Nikita’s throat. “Don’t make me tie you up,” Villanelle says lowly.

            “Marina,” Nikita demands, pushing back. Villanelle brings her leg up, knees her in the solar plexus hard enough to knock the breath from her. Nikita slumps to the floor and Villanelle pins her there, trapping Nikita’s wrists in one hand, using the other to pry her knife from her waistband. This, she holds against Nikita’s throat, right over her pulse.

            “I carved into her pulse,” Villanelle says. “Slowly. And I did the same to her breastbone.” She demonstrates, and like Eve, Nikita stills at the knifepoint’s cold, stinging contact. Villanelle’s blood is racing. Nikita still fights back but each attempt gets feebler, and each time Villanelle puts more pressure on the knife. Arousal pools in her gut, becomes a demanding beat between her thighs but it can wait. “Don’t make me do the same to you, Nikita.”

            Nikita turns her head so that she’s looking at Villanelle full-on. Her face is a mask of rage and despair, something straight out of Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’1 _._ Her jaw works, and she spits. It lands right on Villanelle’s still-stinging cheek.

“Oh,” Villanelle murmurs, and there’s true fear on this woman’s face, “that was just pathetic.” She settles her full weight onto Nikita, puts pressure on the knife again, enough to break skin if she moves it. She smiles, lets a small, breathy chuckle escape. “I think I may have use for my knots after all.” In one smooth movement, she climbs off Nikita but keeps the knife in plain view. “Get up,” she says.

            Nikita obeys with effort. Her clothes are rumpled and there are strands of hair sticking wildly up.

“What do you want, Villanelle?” Nikita asks.

            “Get on the bed.”

“What do you want?”

“Get on the fucking bed. You know where it is.” She follows behind Nikita, who has gone steely, but it is in desperate defense. Villanelle wipes the spit from her cheek with the sleeve of her sweater.

            Villanelle’s bedroom would be considered minimalist by modern standards, but the amount of things she’s collected over the years litter the place in their neat rows and stacks: books, pens, glass bottles of perfume, other knick-knacks she’d bought herself at stores simply because they were ridiculous. Her bed is a king, with a memory foam mattress and a custom-made frame made from cherry wood. Nikita settles on the bed, hands clasped in her lap.

            “Go on,” Villanelle says. “Lie back. It’s comfortable.” She waits until Nikita obeys, and then she opens her wardrobe in the far right-hand corner. “I was saving this rope for a special occasion, but I suppose this one will do.” It’s thin but sturdy and soft to the touch, but still painful if tied tight enough and tugged against. She strides easily to the bed and, after setting her knife on the nightstand, leans over to bind Nikita’s wrists to the headboard. She struggles against it, even when her hands are trapped. Villanelle, once again, holds the blade of her knife against Nikita’s throat and climbs on top of her, straddling her chest.

            “Are you going to call me Eve?” Nikita breathes, voice hard but nervous.

            “Would you like me to?” Villanelle traces the knots she’d made with her fingertips, lets them trail down Nikita’s sleeves. “I’ll call you whatever you want.” Nikita’s breathing through her nose, the breaths quick, slightly shaky. “Is Nikita even your real name?”

            Nikita swallows. “It is.”

            “Why keep it?”

            “Why change yours?” Nikita bites back.

            Villanelle smiles. “Ever the shrink, I see.” The weight in her gut is hot and heavy; she’ll have to do something soon. “Do you want me, Nikita?”

            “It would be… unprofessional if I did.”

            Yet, peeking just above the collar of Nikita’s blouse, is a pink flush. Villanelle traces it, sees the gooseflesh following her fingertips. “I think you do,” she whispers. “Even after all I’ve done to you, to Marina. Is that the case, Nikita?” She cups Nikita’s face, gently, like a lover would. “Are you not compromised?”

            A single tear falls from the corner of Nikita’s left eye. “Yes.” It’s barely audible. It makes Villanelle’s gut clench, in both elation and arousal, and she leans down to kiss her. Nikita’s mouth tastes like her lipstick and her scared breathing. She kisses back and Villanelle is pleased to find that she’s good at it.

* * *

 

            “How long have you wanted me, Nikita?” Villanelle asks, fingers working at the buttons on Nikita’s expensive shirt. The skin underneath is even paler, soft to the touch when Villanelle traces it with fingertips. Her bra is black lace, an intricate floral design; it barely leaves what’s underneath to the imagination. Villanelle presses her lips to the swells of flesh above it, hovers over a nipple while she waits for Nikita’s answer. “How long?” Villanelle repeats softly.

            “Since… the day you took me shopping,” replies Nikita. Her cheeks are red now, and it’s the most emotion Villanelle has ever seen on her face. It’s a strange—but welcome—sight.

            “I see.” She pushes the bra up and takes Nikita’s nipple between her teeth, biting until she hears Nikita moan softly. Her hips press up into Villanelle, and for a while Nikita forces them not to. Villanelle squeezes her other breast, bites that nipple too until it should hurt. “Go on, Nikita,” she says. “Why have you wanted me?”

            Nikita says nothing. Her chest is heaving, and already there’s a small sheen of sweat shining on her skin. Villanelle longs to taste it, but instead she reaches between Nikita’s legs—still covered by her slacks—and traces her. Nikita twitches, inhales sharply.

            “I don’t like it when people hold back,” Villanelle says. “I’d hate to leave you hanging.”

            Nikita’s hands grip her bonds, tightening and loosening. She’s fighting herself, her mouth opening and closing several times before she manages, “You’re attractive. I… I liked your eyes, your stubbornness, how blunt you were…”

            Villanelle rewards her by unbuttoning her pants and kissing her. Nikita’s kisses are clumsy now, and Villanelle can’t tell if it’s from fear or desperation or both. She slips her hand into the parted sides of Nikita’s pants and is met with more delicate lace and wetness. She groans, kisses Nikita harder. “Do you masturbate, Nikita?”

            Nikita pulls away. Her eyes, normally as icy as their color, are wide with surprise and arousal. They glance between Villanelle’s face and her hand, buried inside her slacks. “What?” she breathes. Villanelle retracts her hand, brushing her on the way out, and Nikita gulps, “Yes. Sometimes.”

            “About me?”

            Nikita nods.

            “What did you want me to do to you?”

            At this, Nikita shudders, and her face turns almost as red as her lipstick. Her brain is working, Villanelle can tell, and so while Nikita builds up the courage, she slides her slacks off and allows her lips to trail across the strip of skin just above Nikita’s impractical underwear. Then, a soft, “I-I wanted you… to pin me, I… god I don’t know—” She swallows. “Do what you wanted. I wanted you to… do whatever you pleased with me.”

            Villanelle’s teeth scrape against Nikita’s hipbone. “And what did you think I’d do to you?”

            “Be rough, hurt me in your frustration, tease me… _fuck_ me.”

            “Is that what you want?” Villanelle says.

            Nikita nods. “Yes. Yes. All of it.”

            Villanelle slides back up and gives Nikita a kiss. Her heart is hammering and it feels as if she’s floating in the clouds. “Thank you, Nikita,” she murmurs, and, with little preamble, removes Nikita’s underwear and slides roughly inside her. Nikita moans, her hips pressing up; she’s warm, and unbelievably slick; it makes Villanelle smirk into the side of Nikita’s neck. She bites, then moves to other, more sensitive places: an earlobe, the curve of her shoulder—where she bites deeply, and Nikita makes a guttural sound of pleasure—her nipples, where Villanelle eventually sucks bruises. It brings Nikita too close to the edge, and Villanelle backs off, making Nikita protest, “Why?” She’s gasping, looking desperate, but not enough. Villanelle changes tactics, removing her hand but replacing it with her mouth, hands gripping Nikita’s thighs until there may be bruises there too. Villanelle licks, slowly, and Nikita makes a soft, pleased sound above her, and her arms jerk against their restraints, hands longing to grip Villanelle’s hair. Sadly, Nikita won’t get that chance.

            She keeps it gentle, keeps the pressure of tongue and sucking as light as possible, and Nikita twitches, starts whispering things. “Please.”

            Villanelle pulls away, gaining a whimper. “Louder,” she says. “Don’t hold it back.”

            Nikita shudders, repeats, “Please.”

            Villanelle hums, goes back in to reward her, rougher now. Nikita’s close to writhing, and her breathing is so labored it’s as if she’s run a marathon before Villanelle had tied her up. She slips a finger inside her and Nikita groans, gasps, “Oh my god. Yes.” Her hips meet each thrust and Villanelle admires the tightening of her stomach muscles and the way Nikita’s body curls in on itself when she’s close.

            “Please,” Nikita says. “Oh please.” Her moans grow louder still, and when Villanelle backs off a second time, her head falls back against the pillows and she lets out a noise that sounds suspiciously close to a sob. “Why?” she whispers. Nikita picks her head up and oh. There are tears.

            “Are you seriously going to cry?” Villanelle says.

            “You won’t… I was _there_ …” She’s probably hurting by now, the pressure unable to be put aside. “Please, it’s too much…”

            Well. As long as the tears are for this reason, Villanelle supposes she can let them slide. She moves back up and kisses Nikita, slips her tongue between her teeth. Nikita kisses back, even sucks on her tongue, her lower lip, and for a moment Villanelle wishes she’d just sat astride her face, but this is much more fun.

            “Please, Villanelle,” Nikita whispers, and the use of her name makes her stomach twist. Villanelle kisses her once, hard, and quickly places herself back between Nikita’s parted legs, her mouth no longer gentle. She digs her fingers into Nikita’s thigh until there’ll be bruises, uses her free hand and her mouth to claim her, take her, and then Nikita comes undone against her mouth with a cry. She practically hyperventilates through her aftershocks, which Villanelle strokes her through, and when she pulls away at last, Nikita’s eyes are glassy and red, her makeup smearing slightly underneath them. Villanelle allows her only a minute before she grips Nikita’s hips and turns her over so that she’s on her stomach. She presses against her with her full weight.

            Nikita looks over her shoulder, face contorted in both mild pain and surprise. “What?”

            “Don’t talk,” Villanelle says, and wraps an arm around Nikita and slides back inside her. Nikita groans, obviously overstimulated, but still she presses into the touch, moans at the movements. She grips Nikita’s hair with her free hand and her heart throbs. She’d done this once, with Anna, at the foot of her bed, except Anna’s wrists hadn’t been bound or twisted; she liked to have them free when they indulged in that sinful sex, liked to hold Villanelle as close as possible. Villanelle takes her hand away and brings her thumb to her mouth, wetting it thoroughly, and she slips back between Nikita’s thighs and makes her intentions clear. Nikita freezes underneath her, then shudders. Villanelle asks, “Do you like this?”

            Nikita only breathes for a moment. Then, “Yes.” It’s barely audible.

            Villanelle kisses behind Nikita’s ear. “Be still,” she says, and presses slowly inside, reveling Nikita’s full-body shiver, the whimper that escapes her lips. Villanelle licks her own, which still taste like her: salty, richer, like the ocean-perfume that’d lingered in the apartment the day they first met.

            “Oh my god,” Nikita pants quietly.

            “You hold back,” Villanelle murmurs, “and I do nothing. I leave you permanently hanging, aching for this.”

            “Please,” Nikita says. “It’s so much… _please_ …” She nearly cries out when the rhythm starts.

            Villanelle keeps it slow, syrupy; this is the kind that’d ruined Anna so thoroughly, leaving her trembling for the long minutes Villanelle had scrubbed her hands in the bathroom. Unlike Anna, Nikita doesn’t take too kindly to having her hair tugged, and so Villanelle keeps that hand on Nikita’s shoulder instead. She hasn’t taken anyone like this in months, and it brings back a sort of elation. She can’t help but moan. She kisses behind Nikita’s ear, even traces its shape with her teeth. She murmurs, “Isn’t this what you wanted, Nikita? For me to do as I _pleased_ with you?”

            Nikita can only nod, too overwhelmed with sensations.

            Villanelle kisses her neck and increases the pace only slightly; Nikita is trembling, her breathing strained. Her orgasm, when it hits, is intense and goes on for what feels like minutes, and she moans loudly throughout its entirety. Villanelle works her through it out of courtesy, and when Nikita slackens in her grip, she pulls out gently, and leaves her on the bed to clean her hands. When she comes back, Villanelle unties Nikita’s wrists and flops down on the other side of the bed, basking in the ruined woman at her side. Nikita’s limbs tremble and her chest heaves, the bruises Villanelle had sucked into her skin standing out against its fairness. But then, to her surprise, Nikita props herself on an elbow and leans to kiss her. It’s soft, languid, and the thumb that strokes over her cheek is far too gentle. Yet Villanelle allows it, even spreads her knees so that Nikita can get a hand into her jeans. Practiced fingers slip inside her and she moans softly against Nikita’s mouth; it feels good, certainly, but the colors she’d felt earlier are fading. She kisses back, lets her hips meet Nikita’s hand like they want to. She only pulls away when climax hits, gasping quietly through it and a fleeting thought of Eve hits her. She’d be more vocal with Eve.

            Nikita makes to kiss her again but Villanelle pulls away, gets up from the bed and buttons her jeans. “We’re done,” she says.

            “What?”

            “You got what you wanted. So did I.”

            Nikita’s voice is steely when she says, “Not everything.”

            Villanelle turns to face her. “Oh, you mean your sister. She’s alive.” Villanelle smiles at the devastated look on Nikita’s face, her wide, glassy eyes, her trembling lower lip and chin. “You can go back to whatever it is you do.”

            She gathers her belongings, everything she needs to make a quick getaway, and her exit is accompanied by sobbing.

              

 

* * *

 

—

Nikita, of course, had been compromised from the beginning; all it took for the ones in charge to notice was Villanelle’s own actions. She’d found the identical twin sister, Marina, in Switzerland, but in the end had done nothing with her. It was perfect bait, and though she tried to keep her mask, something inside Nikita had broken and it led to a moment of violence before Villanelle had finally gotten what she wanted: Nikita in bed, fucked to near incoherency. Now the woman is gone, assigned elsewhere or retired by either bullet or understanding hand, and Villanelle has her own ends to tie.

            Anna Leonova’s apartment is sealed off by bright crime scene tape even two months later. There are signs of traffic but other than that there is nothing. Her precious belongings are collecting dust. The place smells stale and lifeless. It had once been full of it, a warm place with conversation and books and passionate sex and as she retraces old steps, Villanelle takes in the familiar details. There is the table they’d had lessons at. There is the couch she’d once slept on out of a sort of fear that, after being in Anna’s bed for sexual reasons, Anna wouldn’t want her there for any other intimacy. There is the chair they’d defiled. There is the bathroom where Villanelle had first kissed Anna. And there is the bedroom, that precious place, the last place anything good had happened between them. It isn’t yellow with morning’s light. It’s grey and sour.

            Villanelle can smell the sheets when she moves them to get underneath the bed. There are boxes with belongings from Anna’s childhood, a few boxes of books that hadn’t fit on the shelves in the sitting room; nothing she’s after. She scoots a little further underneath the bed and finds what she’s looking for: a fine wooden box with gold latches and lock. She brings it out from underneath the bed, dusts the top off, and searches in the nightstand drawer for the key. It’s buried underneath folded papers that have scribbled out words. Villanelle unlocks the lock, undoes the latches; inside the box are the hundred or so letters she’d written to Anna, both during their relationship and from her time in prison, and a fat, yellow envelope. She runs her fingers over her letters, the French words of love whispering to her. Her chest feels funny, tight with something like anger but colder. She sighs, tells herself to complete this little mission, and leaves the bedroom for a trash bag from underneath Anna’s kitchen sink. She stuffs the letters into it first. Then she opens the yellow envelope and carefully fingers through its contents.

            Photographs. Perhaps fifty of them. Given that they were in this box and not in the photo album on the bookshelf, these were Anna’s treasured pictures. They start with her wedding, and judging by the quality of the photographs, they’re developed film. Anna’s dress is old-fashioned, and the veil covers her face and hangs about her shoulders. Her hair is neat, dark and shining, as fabulous then as it had been the last time Villanelle had seen her, though in these pictures there isn’t a trace of grey. Both she and Max look so young, perhaps younger than Villanelle is now. She flips through a few more and pauses at a close-up of Max lifting the veil from Anna’s face and folding it back. Her eyes are warm, her smile bright. Villanelle’s jaw tightens but she takes the picture from the pile and sets it beside her on the floor. The next pictures are of her and Anna: One taken at the hotel in Moscow where she’d gone with Anna to the French Honor Society holiday gathering, taken by a colleague of Anna’s; another where they’re walking along a path, both smiling and bearing umbrellas. Her teeth clench so much they start to hurt and Villanelle nearly rips the picture. She takes a breath. Despite the bitterness the photograph brings to her tongue, it is also one of her treasured memories. She doesn’t have many. She puts that picture on top of the wedding close-up, along with her own school photograph and one of Anna, and dumps the rest into the trash bag, the box following too. Then she goes into the sitting room and pulls down Anna’s favorite French novels, the ones she’d read to Villanelle on the nights she’d stayed over when Max was away, including _Les Misérables,_ before she’d become bored of it. She puts the photographs in the inside covers and gets a smaller plastic bag for those books. Having found nothing else worthy of keeping, Villanelle cleans her presence from the place, and gathers her stolen belongings. She pauses by the front door to get a last look, noticing that where Anna had fallen after her death is spotless. She hears their ghosts fade away into the ether.

            Villanelle closes the door softly behind her and makes her way from the apartment. To other tenants, she’ll simply look like another taking her garbage to the dumpsters around the back of the ground floor.

            She books herself the first flight to Paris, which is leaving tonight, then goes into town to purchase a large suitcase that will fit the large trash bag and the smaller one.

 

—

Back in Paris, she sleeps for eight hours, takes a shower, and dresses in beach-going clothes. She opens the giant suitcase she’d purchased in Russia and separates the pictures she’d kept from the large trash bag. She puts the pictures in her wardrobe, keeping them carefully wrapped in the bag and in a darker corner. Then she hauls the trash bag down the stairs and to a car on the curb, breaking in easily. It’s a little past six in the evening, and her favorite beach will be having a bonfire. She climbs into the car, finds the keys underneath the sun visor, and takes off.

            The sun is lower in the horizon by the time she arrives, and on the shore of the beach, a large fire burns and several people are gathered around it, drinks in hand, throwing things into the flames. Villanelle drags her bag to it, takes her shoes off. She’s welcomed by Parisians and tourists alike, some from Germany, Italy, and America. A German woman offers her a beer, and Villanelle accepts it, says, “ _Danke_.” It’s a good beer, a darker draft. A man throws a pile of papers onto the fire and there are cheers. He shouts, “To letting go!”

            Villanelle tightens her grip on the trash bag. An American woman asks, “Anything you’d like to let go of, dear?”

            Villanelle sets her bottle in the sand and takes out the wooden box and throws it into the flames first, watching it catch and smoke. Next are the letters, which she tosses on by the handful. They catch easily and curl in on themselves before disintegrating and blowing away in the warm breeze. Lastly are the film pictures. They stay untouched for seconds, and then the film begins to bubble. Anna melts before she turns to ash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. "Ozymandias", written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. It's a sonnet and, back in the day, was read and studied by students and scholars alike. This reference is to its most famous line: "Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Essentially, Nikita is thrown into despair because of Villanelle's works.
> 
> \--  
> SUMMARY OF THE SEX SCENE: V has found that Nikita's weakness is her sister, and so she uses that against Nikita in order to get what she wants: Nikita's submission. She tricks Nikita that she murdered her sister, but in the end, tells her that she's alive. Nikita, of course, is devastated.


	5. The Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been half a year. I have no excuse (I mean, I do, but we'll skip it and get to the good stuff.) A short chapter this time but a lengthy epilogue will follow. And yes, Eve finally shows up! 
> 
> Thank you all for your patience xx

The first thing Villanelle does when she arrives in London is check into her hotel and shower off the train ride. Afterwards she looks for Eve via her laptop. It takes a minute but she’s able to get a ping off Eve’s mobile. It shows she’s at a restaurant downtown, a good distance away from Thames House; it’s known for its affordable yet tasty wines. Villanelle had gone there long ago, at the beginning of her newfound and chosen life. It feels like ages ago. She opens a new tab and searches for Eve’s laptop. The hit comes up at a hotel, dirt cheap by Villanelle’s standards.

            What are you doing, Eve? she wonders, hacking into it now. A hotel means she’s working a job, and probably having dinner with someone who can give her information. Or she’s staying at the hotel because she’s separated from that mustached husband of hers and is now looking for apartments and having dinner with a friend.

            As much as she wants to see Eve, it’ll have to wait till morning.

            Villanelle’s hotel has a good-sized bar on the ground floor, as well as a gym and a pool. She chooses the bar. The place is livelier than expected; its occupants are all wearing business clothes and are from various nationalities. Walking through them, Villanelle catches conversations in Arabic, Dutch, and German. The men’s suits look the same apart from different styles and cuts. The women are far more glamorous. Colognes and perfumes cloud the air around her and linger, even after she’s seated herself at the bar.

            She orders a glass of the hotel’s best champagne and contents herself with it, letting the noise fade into the background while studying the people. Several men check her out but she visibly ignores them. She isn’t in the mood for their rough bodies, their hardness. She wants someone with voluminous hair, someone with soft skin.

            What, Villanelle wonders, would Eve do if she showed up at the restaurant and sat with her and whoever she was with like they were old friends? Eve would freeze, retreat inwards out of fear, save the lashing out for later. Maybe Villanelle would show up with a gift, something Eve would both like and wear. Or perhaps she’d just give her flowers. They were simple enough but said so many things.

            Across the way is a blonde in a group of men. She’s turned away from all of them and her attention is on Villanelle, practically staring. In her expensive jeans and button-down sweater, her face bare of makeup, Villanelle knows she looks beautiful; she’d seen her reflection mirrored back at her in the hotel’s elevator. Obviously bored and looking for escape, Villanelle gestures for the woman to join her. She adopts a recent cover, Helene; goes over the details while the woman excuses herself from her party. _Helene Caron, well-travelled, native of Nice; financial advisor for an up-and-coming fashion company and in London for business._

“Thank god you invited me over when you did,” the woman says in accented English. Villanelle knows that accent. Amsterdam. “It was getting particularly boring.”

            “You looked about ready to slit their throats,” says Villanelle. “What are you drinking?”

            “Some fruit thing, can’t remember the name.”

            “I’ll buy your next one.”

            Villanelle learns her name is Ella and that she’s here with the CEO, CFO, and other higher-up employees for an engineering conference. They’re trying to get things going at the London office, which was opened after remodels just six months ago.

            “Kind of glad they’re with me,” Ella continues. “I hate travelling alone.”

            “But you are alone,” Villanelle ventures around her near-empty champagne glass.

            “I’m sharing a room with—” Ella’s eyes go wide—they’re a lovely green—and her cheeks redden. “Oh,” she says. “You mean…” She sets her fruity drink on the bar. “Yes, I’m alone.”

            “You like women?”

            Ella smiles nervously. “I love them.”

            “Come upstairs for a bit.” Villanelle finishes her champagne, takes out enough money to cover both their tabs and the tip. “You’ll be less bored.”

            Ella follows willingly, and once they’re behind Villanelle’s closed door, she allows herself to be kissed, accepting Villanelle’s tongue when it slips between her teeth.

           

—

The morning dawns grey and rainy and London’s occupants carry umbrellas with them, including Eve, who is strutting her way through Trafalgar Square, past groups of tourists with cameras. She’s headed in the direction of a café that Villanelle has only been to twice. Her hair is half-tied back, even more voluminous because of the humidity.

            Eve is interviewing a witness. Villanelle had hacked into Eve’s computer and read the emails. The case is generic murder. Her disappointment shows in the sag of her shoulders. They’ll perk up once Villanelle joins her.

            Inside, the café smells of sandwiches and coffee. Eve pauses by a table, talking to a redheaded woman in a business outfit, and then she sits. Villanelle takes a longer route to the back of the café, seating herself by a window within view of Eve’s table. She won’t be easily recognizable; her hair is up in a bun and hidden underneath a black baseball cap and she’s wearing a thinner, black and grey bomber jacket over generic-looking touristy clothes.

            When a waitress comes by Villanelle orders a sandwich and a cappuccino. Then she says, “See that Asian woman with the redhead?” The waitress nods. “Bring her a cappuccino too.”

            “I could give her your number, if that’s what you’re getting at,” the waitress says, smiling a little. Maybe this is a little excitement for a rather boring day.

            “Just the coffee is fine, thank you,” Villanelle says, and the waitress, whose nametag says Sophie, walks confidently back to the kitchen.

            Playing with Eve is fun, but this is the first time in a while that she’ll have heard from Villanelle directly. Making a statement is necessary. Would something as simple as an unordered cappuccino frighten her into action?

            The answer, after Sophie brings Villanelle her food first, is yes. Eve looks confused, then says what looks like “I didn’t order that.”

            Villanelle wolfs down more than half her sandwich, takes two more gulps of coffee, leaves three bills on the table, and exits through the back exit while Eve looks behind her. She observes the action through the window: Eve saying another string of words to the redheaded woman—probably saying the interview will resume after while, or the day after—and gathering her things in a rush. Villanelle walks in the direction of the crowd just as Eve goes through the door. She doesn’t need to look back to know that Eve will spot her.

            When she imagined meeting Eve after Paris, there were always several scenarios. Breaking into her house, assuming a cover identity and going into Thames House, calling her just to hear her ask “Hello?” and, not seconds later, “Villanelle?” and she’d hang up without saying anything. This is as spontaneous as those, though she doesn’t expect a firm grip on her wrist and to be turned around to face Eve. She is so jarring up close, her dark eyes ablaze with so many things, her lips parted; Villanelle forgets to breathe.

            “You’re tampering with my… work,” Eve says at last.

            “Is that what you say to someone you thought was dead when they suddenly turn up?”

            “I didn’t think you were. No—I… I did… _briefly_. But then—”

            “Where are you living?” Villanelle asks.

            Eve stutters for a moment. “Nowhere, actually,” she replies. “A hotel.”

            “Bad news, bears.” The crowd steps around them, saying nothing but thinking they’re idiots for pausing in the middle of a walkway. “Let’s talk indoors,” Villanelle says, turning to walk in the direction she’d been going before Eve grabbed her.

            “You realize I have a _witness_ to interview?”

            “She can wait. Tell her something else came up and it’ll resume tomorrow.”

            Eve makes a short phone call. Then she stomps to the curb and hails a cab. “You’re buying me a gin and tonic,” she tells Villanelle, and slides into the cab first when it stops in front of them.


End file.
